Welcome to Paradise

“
Shames can be as absurd and hilarious as Carl
Hiaasen at his most uproarious…[The] mayhem would not disgrace the
Marx Brothers. A scream of a read.”
—The Guardian
(London)

“
The author sets up the inevitable comedy of errors
like a dealer laying out a winning hand of cards…The Key West
locale was so real I felt my hair frizz.”
—The Los
Angeles Times

“
Laurence Shames mixes sun and fun, wise guys and
dumb guys, smart gals and bad gals with such wit and style it makes
you want to head straight to Key West and join the
party.
”—The Orlando Sentinel

Smashwords Edition

Copyright ©1999 Laurence Shames

http://www.LaurenceShames.com

Originally published by Villard Books, a division of
Random House, Inc.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment
only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people.
If you would like to share this book with another person, please
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own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this
author.

To Marilyn,
who laughs
with love

"Was the, clams," said Nicky Scotto.

"Ya sure?" said Donnie Falcone. Skeptically,
he tugged on a long and fleshy earlobe. "Ya sure it was the
clams?"

"Hadda be the clams." Nicky sipped anisette
and looked vaguely toward the window of Nono's Pasticceria. Nono's
was on Carmine Street, two steps below the sidewalk. Half a century
of exhaust fumes had tinted its front window a restful bluish gray.
People talked softly in Nono's. Never loud enough to be heard above
the steaming of the milk. Nicky put his glass down, said, "Fuck
else could it'a been?"

Carefully, fastidiously, Donnie broke a
biscotto
, herded up crumbs with the flat of his thumb. He
hated when crumbs got stuck in the fibers of his big black
overcoat. "How should I know? What else j'eat?"

Nicky winced just slightly and softly belched
at the recollection of the catastrophic meal. He pictured the
breadsticks, the drops of wine on the tablecloth. His fist still
pressed against his lips, he said, "Minestrone."

"Minestrone," echoed Donnie. "Ya don't puke
off minestrone."

"Hadda be the clams," Nicky said once more.
He leaned back in the booth, smoothed the creamy mohair of his
jacket. Dark and thickly built, he was handsome until you looked a
little closer. The jaw was square but just a little heavy, the
black eyes too close to the thick and slightly piggish nose.

Donnie kept his eyes down on his pastry
plate. "Ya sure you're not just lookin' for a reason to get mad at
Al?"

When Nicky was agitated, his voice got softer
instead of louder. His throat squeezed down like a crimped hose and
words came out with the razzing purr of a muted trumpet. "I don't
need another fuckin' reason to be mad at Al."

Donnie thought it best to leave it right
there. "Okay. What else j'eat?"

Nicky absently ran fingertips against the
wall. The wall was covered with small white tiles, broken up with
ranks of gold and black at shoulder level. "Broccoli rabe," he
said. "Scallopini veal, lemon sauce. Some pasta shit, little hats,
like."

Donnie said, "Orecchiette?"

"Fuck knows?" said Nicky. "Look, I didn't
come here to discuss macaroni shapes, okay? I come here to tell ya
what that fuck Al did to me."

"A few bad clams," said Donnie.
"Happens."

"Look, when I had the fish market, I did the
right thing. I didn't give bad clams to places where friends of
ours was gonna eat."

"Nicky. How is Al supposed to know you're
gonna be eatin' in some hotel up inna Catskills?"

The question slowed Nicky down. His
fingernails tickled the grout between the tiles.

Donnie went on. "Truth, Nicky, I don't see
you inna fuckin' Catskills either. It's a Jew place."

"Used ta be," said Nicky. "Now it's
everything. Hotels for queers. For Puerto Ricans. Couple good
Italian places, you know that."

"Okay, okay. But whaddya do up there? Play
shuffle- board?"

Embarrassed, Nicky said, "Ya look at
leaves."

"Leaves?"

"I tol' ya, Donnie," Nicky said. "My
mother-in-law, it was her seventieth. My wife says, 'She loves the
autumn. Let's take her to the leaves.' So I say okay. The old broad
wantsta look at leaves, I'm tryin' to be nice. Wha' could I tell
ya—this is who I am."

Donnie drained his espresso, motioned for
another. From behind his arm, he said, "It ain't the clams. You're
mad 'cause Tony Eggs took the fish away from you and gave it to Big
Al."

Nicky tugged at the collar of his turtleneck,
twisted his head around in a circle. "'Course I'm mad," he finally
admitted. "Fuck wit' a man's livelihood, who ain't gonna be mad?"
There was a silence, and when the stocky man spoke again he could
not quite hide a real sorrow and bewilderment. "Why'd he do it,
Donnie?"

Donnie shrugged. He had a long thin face and
a long thin neck, and when he shrugged, his shoulders had a lot of
ground to cover. His skin had a grayish-yellow cast and his usual
expression was distantly amused yet mournful. "I ain't got a
clue."

"Come on—the man's your uncle."

"Great-uncle," corrected Donnie, and came
close to revealing some pique of his own. "An' ya see how close we
are. Me, I'm still hustling window-cleaning contracts inna fuckin'
garment district."

Nicky made a vague and universal griping
sound.

Donnie sipped coffee and quietly went on.
"Look, the market's Big Al's now. Ya gotta let it go."

"This ain't about the market."

"I wish I could believe that."

"What this is about is that he poisoned me.
Poisoned alla us."

Donnie's flat lips stretched out and came
close to smiling. He wiped his mouth instead. "The t'ree a you in
that hotel room—"

"Suite. It was a suite. Two bedrooms. Two
bat'rooms. I thought two would be enough."

There was a pause. Outside on Carmine Street,
taxis went by, the clatter of trucks filtered in from Seventh
Avenue. The milk steamer hissed and Nicky got madder. Revolted.
Humiliated. "Well," he went on, "two bat'rooms wasn't enough. The
wife, the old lady—disgusting. Dignity? Tell me about dignity when
you're leakin' both ends, hoppin' to the toilet wit' your pj's down
your ankles. When your wife has to crawl over ya to get to the
bowl."

"Nicky, it was just bad luck. Coulda happened
to any—"

But Nicky was not to be hushed. Air wheezed
through his pinched windpipe. "Ol' lady ends up whaddyacallit,
intravenous. Happy birt'day, Ma. Camille, skinny marink to begin
wit', she drops six pounds. Me, I ain't right for a week. A week,
Donnie! Cramps, runs, white shit on my tongue. Taste in my mouth
like somethin' died. I tell ya, Donnie, a week a hell."

Donnie had settled back in the booth, all but
disappearing into his coat. When Nicky finished, he leaned forward,
folded his long neat hands in front of him, and said very softly,
"But, Nicky, why stay mad? I mean, where we goin' wit' this? Ya
gonna ice a guy over some funky seafood?"

Nicky sipped his anisette. His face went
innocent. "Who said anything about icin' anyone? You said that. Not
me."

"I only said—"

"Look, I'm a guy that does the right
thing—"

"You keep sayin' that," Donnie pointed
out.

"—and all I want is that that fuckin' guy
should suffer like I suffered. A week a total misery. Justice.
That's all I want. Zat too fuckin' much t'ask?"

"Justice? Yeah," said Donnie. He blotted up
some crumbs. "So whaddya want from me?"

"Help. Advice. Like, ways to ruin his
life."

"Nicky, I don't want no part a this. Besides,
it's gonna have to wait."

"What has to wait? Wait for what?"

"Big Al's goin' outa town I heard. Goin' on
vacation."

Nicky rubbed his chin. "Hey, I was on
vacation, too. A guy can't be mizzable on vacation?" He paused. He
brightened slightly and his small black eyes squeezed down.
"Where's he goin' on vacation?"

"Flahda," Donnie said reluctantly. "Key West
is what I heard."

"Flahda," Nicky intoned. He drained his
anisette, wrapped hot hands around the glass. He lifted up one
curly eyebrow. "Flahda. Far away. That's nice. That's like the best
advice you coulda gimme."

"Hey—"

"Flahda. Vacation. Far away from
everything."

"You never heard it from me," said
Donnie.

Nicky said, "So happens I got friends in
Flahda."

"Why we gotta, drive?" said Katy Sansone, who
was twenty-nine years old and Big Al Marracotta's girlfriend.

She was bustling around the pink apartment
that Big A1 kept for her in Murray Hill. It was not a great
apartment, but Katy, though she had her good points, was not that
great a girlfriend. She complained a lot. She went right to the
edge of seeming ungrateful. She had opinions and didn't seem to
understand that if she refreshed her lipstick more, and answered
back less, she might have had the one-bedroom with the courtyard
view rather than the noisy, streetside studio with the
munchkin-sized appliances. Now she was packing, roughly, showing a
certain disrespect for the tiny bathing suits and thong panties and
G-strings and underwire bras that Big A1 had bought her for the
trip.

"We have to drive," he said, "because the
style in which I travel, airports have signs calling it an act of
terrorism."

"Always with the guns," she pouted. "Even on
vacation?"

"Several," said Big Al. "A small one for the
glove compartment. A big one under the driver's seat. A fuckin'
bazooka inna trunk." He smiled. "Oh, yeah—and don't forget the big
knife inna sock." He was almost cute when he smiled. He had a small
gap between his two front teeth, and the waxy crinkles at the
corners of his eyes suggested a boyish zest. When he smiled his
forehead shifted and moved the short salt-and-pepper hair that
other times looked painted on. Big A1 was five foot two and weighed
one hundred sixteen pounds. "Besides," he added, "I wanna bring the
dog."

"The daw-awg!" moaned Katy.

Big A1 raised a warning finger, but even
before he did so, Katy understood that she should go no further.
Certain things were sacred, and she could not complain about the
dog. Its name was Ripper. It was a champion rottweiler and a total
coward. It had coy brown eyebrows and a brown blaze on its square
black head, and it dribbled constantly through the flubbery pink
lips that imperfectly covered its mock-ferocious teeth. A stub of
amputated tail stuck out above its brown-splashed butt, and its
testicles, the right one always lower than the left, hung down and
bounced as though they were on bungees. It was those showy and
ridiculous nuts, she secretly believed, that made A1 dote so on the
dog.

She kept packing. High-heeled sandals.
Open-toed pumps. Making chitchat, trying to sound neutral, she
said, "So the dog's already in the car?"

Big A1 nodded. "Guarding it." Again he
smiled. Say this for him: he knew what gave him pleasure. He had a
huge dog gnawing on a huge bone in the backseat of his huge gray
Lincoln. He had a young girlfriend packing slinky things for a
weeklong Florida vacation—a week of sun, sweat, sex, and lack of
aggravation. For the moment he was a happy guy.

Katy snapped her suitcase closed and
straightened out her back. She was five foot eleven, and A1 had
told her never to insult him by wearing flats. Standing there in
heels and peg-leg pants, she looked a little like a missile taking
off. Long lean shanks and narrow hips provided thrust that seemed
to lift the dual-coned payload of chest, which tapered in turn to a
pretty though small-featured face capped by a pouf of raven
hair.

For a moment she just stood there by her
suitcase, waiting to see if A1 would pick it up. Then she picked it
up herself and they headed for the door.

His face was on her bosom the whole elevator
ride down to the garage. Vacation had begun.

*

Across the river in suburban New Jersey, on the vast
and cluttered selling floor of Kleiman Brothers Furniture on Route
22 in Springfield, a ceremony was in progress.

Moe Kleiman, the last survivor of the
founding brothers, had taken off his shoes and was standing,
somewhat shakily, on an ottoman. He stroked his pencil mustache,
fiddled with the opal tie tack that, every day for many years, he'd
painstakingly poked through the selfsame holes in the selfsame
ties, and gestured for quiet. Benignly, he looked out across the
group that he proudly referred to as the finest sales staff in the
Tri-State area. For a moment he gazed beyond them to the store he
loved: lamps with orange price tags hanging from their covered
shades; ghostly conversation nooks in which a rocker seemed to be
conferring with a La-Z-Boy; ranks of mattresses close-packed as
cots in a battlefield hospital.